Multi-stage and single-stage switches may be used in a communications network to manage communications signals, such as SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) based signals. Typically, the multi-stage switch is a time-space-time (TST) switch having three stages: an input time switch (input stage), a space switch stage (middle stage), and an output switch stage (output stage). Each time switch in the input time stage is coupled to multiple space switches. The space switches are coupled to the output time switches. The output of each space switch can be directed to a single port, or, alternatively, broadcast to any number of output ports.
In some instances, the configuration of switching paths between the input time switch stage and the space switch stage, and the space switch stage and the output time stage leads to a blocking situation. Thus blocking occurs, even though sufficient bandwidth is available, if the appropriate switching paths between the space stage and the time stages are not properly managed.
Device drivers can be developed to avoid blocking based on analyzing the complexities of the multi-stage switch, but this development can add significant design time and cost for associated products. Moreover, a single-stage switch may be preferred over a multi-stage switch for many applications; however, the bandwidth of the single-stage switch may not be sufficient to support some applications. For example, a higher bandwidth may be required to support various types of communications traffic. Thus, there is a need for an approach to adapt high bandwidth multi-stage switches for use as single-stage switches.